Divers Paths to Justice - English - Forest Peoples Programme

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Divers Paths to Justice: Legal pluralism and the rights of indigenous peoples inSoutheast Asiamonolithic way. Only government officers have rights to manage the forest,and therefore its impact on RF. Local people are not allowed to manage oreven co-manage their own resources. However, in the same highland areas,some highland projects working with cash crops in cool/cold climates enjoyfull rights of access to the forest, supported by government policy. At thesame time, local people are not allowed to farm their ancestral lands andpractise traditional RF as governmental policy excludes and criminalisesthem.This amounts to discrimination against local/indigenous occupations andcultural rights, and creates natural resource competition between those withtraditional and those with legal/policy rights. The indigenous peoples mustnegotiate their rights based on the Thai Constitution and the presentcommunity forest law, which accords rights to communities that werepreviously managing their own forests for more than ten years. Even inYellowstone National Park in the US, local residents now have the right toco-manage natural resources in the park. It can be said that if resourcemanagement is to be democratic, then co-management of resources must bethe method of choice.The Forestry Department claims to manage natural resources for thesecurity of the nation. However, the nation is defined by its “people”, thosewho live in this nation State. Thus, if the security of the people in the“nation” is not supported, how can the Forestry Department claim topreserve the security of nation? The management of natural resources mustbe open to diverse and alternative solutions which can only emerge throughan iterative process of negotiation. This in turn requires a variety of openforums and joint decision making processes.The Thai government is currently pursuing a single path regarding landrights and that is to bring land rights into the domain of individual propertyrights through the use of individual land titles. The reasoning behind thispolicy is that by giving land titles to individuals, such titleholders wouldthen have greater security in maintaining possession of their land. However,in reality, this position creates problems. First, it will drive up land prices bypermitting those individuals who hold land titles to sell that land. Second, itwill cause corruption and exploitation by opening up the possibility of141
Divers Paths to Justice: Legal pluralism and the rights of indigenous peoples inSoutheast Asiaobtaining land titles by fraudulent means and making it possible for thosewith land titles to clear and develop forested lands.When poorer local communities raised concerns over this issue, it wasdiscovered that in reality, it is possible to have different types of land titles;not only individual land titles but also community land titles in the form ofcommunity forests. Having different types of land titles may protect localcommunities from land grabbing and other forms of exploitation of landrights legislation. With communal land rights, poor local people will gaingreater life security providing them with the flexibility to work outside theircommunities (as labourers, for example) but also to return to work theirland if and when they need to. This constitutes flexibility in terms oflivelihood strategies.Although it would be beneficial to have other options such as this, as of yet,the Thai government is not pursuing alternative forms of land entitlement.In our research, we found that local people need different forms of landentitlement, not only individual land titles. Communal land titles have scopebeyond individual ownership, allowing groups, clans, organisations andcommunities to share ownership of the land. This would also help stop theincrease of commercial land development in previously undeveloped forestareas.A further consideration would be the granting of rights for communal landuse, which could be considered a form of local control, giving communitiesthe right to control the land not just in terms of ownership, but also in termsof how it is used. Therefore, in the future, the government needs to establisha law for communal land titles and communal land use to increase localcommunities’ control of their lands.Another option, in line with a capitalist system, is for land ownership to becontrolled by a proportional land tax, with those owning larger amounts ofland paying higher taxes than those owning smaller amounts. This couldhelp reduce land prices and increase the likelihood that poorer people canaccess land. Government support for this would lead to more equitable landdistribution.All this means that it is necessary to change the structure of land142
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Divers Paths to Justice - English - Forest Peoples Programme

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